How bad was the pain of labour/giving birth?

[HE96x]

Ftm due in just under 3 weeks so please give it to me as it is lol as I need to be prepared. How bad is the pain really? I do think I have a good pain threshold but by no means am I a superhuman when it comes to pain. I am aiming to go as natural as possible and just get through it on gas and air as i don't want stronger drugs if I can avoid it. I am so far quite complacent about the whole thing, I'm not particularly worried and keep telling myself yes it will be extremely painful but bearable, but.. is the pain bearable? Is it totally doable on just gas and air or am I being unrealistic? And also which was the worst part of the whole process for you, contractions or pushing/ring of fire?

Thanks in advance!

I used to work in a salon and chatting to the women there I discovered the ones that took raspberry leaf tea had quicker births so I made sure I had that for all three and yes they were all pretty quick. Things that helped a lot were a heat pack for the contractions when at home and in the car on the way there and shower/bath. Gas and air once there. Try not to think about it until it's happening, worrying won't help you at all. Each contraction is bringing you a step closer to your baby, it's a wonderful thing!

@sunflowersngunpowdr Well done them. Yes. I’ve heard them boasting about their superiority. I thought my serene birth was better for me but if some love screaming in pain so be it. Just don’t boast about natural birth afterwards. Pain is a waste of energy. Does it make you a better person? Cannot see it myself.

It's funny nature seems to have a way of making women forget the pain of childbirth. All I can remember is that it's very painful but it's not like a broken leg or kidney stone, it's like pain with a purpose, you know there will be an end to it and your body just does what it needs to to get through it. I can't really remember what a contraction actually feels like 5 years later lol, just painful. I've had two babies, first was 36 hour long drawn out labour with bad grazing but no stitches (since realised I should have been stitched at the time) second was quicker pushing stage but I would say more intense! Both average size babies. Youll be fine.

@TizerorFizz I haven't seen anyone "boasting" about having a painful birth. You seem quite dismissive and judgemental of women that choose to birth differently to you. I'm glad you had the birth you wanted, why do you feel so defensive about it?

My first I found the level of pain shocking and worse than I expected. My second and third were much easier as I knew what to expect.

It's a build up of pain from the contractions followed by giving birth. How long the contractions last is a big factor in managing the pain.
There's two painful parts to giving birth, the head and the shoulders .

@vibratosprigato I listened to many women boasting about natural birth and how strong they were before I had dc. They truly believed it was the only way and other mums were weaklings. I’m still mystified why anyone thinks extreme pain is a good. Also women pretending birth is like shelling peas and only weak women should have intervention has led to baby deaths. Never mind the browbeating of many women who are relentlessly told “natural” is best and anything else is a failure. We now know this is wrong and happened in maternity units where deaths were too high.

So all I’m really saying is be guided and don’t stick to your ‘plan’ if it’s patently not working. Take advice because it matters. Do not automatically think pain is best and tell others it’s a good thing. Some of us have been strong enough to stand up to this.

No one does this. All women should be proud however they give birth. In both your posts you’ve completely put down anyone who chooses not to have any pain relief. You have your serene birth, I loved my natural births pain and all!!

@TizerorFizz women that choose to avoid an epidural are not any less wise than you are. You prioritised feeling calm while labouring. I prioritised avoiding an instrumental delivery - my risk was higher due to raised BMI and I was advised that an epidural would increase the risks even further.

Ultimately it didn't matter what choice I made beforehand because it all happened so quickly that I wouldn't have had time for one anyway.

All woman should be able to express pride in their pregnancy and delivery if they feel it. It isn't an attack on women that make different choices!

It became a mantra that did attack other women. You may not do this but there’s been a whole natural birth movement that made women feel guilty. Maybe we agree that women should choose but no woman should feel a failure after intervention. Many many women did.

I'm used to a lot of pain / abdominal pain (had huge surgeries and cancer) but childbirth was incredibly painful.

I laboured for 2 days (at 37 weeks so not a huge baby) it wasn't so much the actual contractions but the fact it went on so long, so by the time DD was born I'd had no sleep and then you go straight into the newborn trenches which means no sleep.

I got to 5CM on paracetamol only. Got to 7CM and asked for pethidine. I felt a really unusual pain which was nothing short of horrific, it felt like tearing inside my stomach and it burned. She had moved and put her arm up or something so there was no chance she was coming out as she wasn't low enough to be moved.

Ended up with a semi emergency section. The section itself was fine, no pain but a very weird sensation. The recovery was brutal but I think it's because I have so much scar tissue from my abdomen surgery it made it a lot harder. I would much prefer a vaginal birth for any subsequent children. My stomach internally is in bits.

As a whole I'd rate it a 3/10.
Strange, lovely, painful and tiring.

I am the biggest "jessie". My pain threshold is about 1. 😂My first I had pethidine/gas and air. The second I left it late getting to maternity. I was too late for drugs, apparently, I was begging for them but it was great, I felt so good right after birth and was more "present".
You do whatever you gotta do, everyone is different.
Good luck x

Obviously different for everyone but through my whole labour I was in control and the pain was very manageable. I had a list of things I was going to do when it 'started properly' (get changed into a loose nightie/walk about/get my playlist on). The pain was there for sure, but so manageable that I didn't think i was in established labour.. turns out I was 9 and a half cm dilated and it really had started properly 😂 by that time things were progressing so quick that there was no time for any pain relief and I only had gas and air for the last 10 mins of pushing. Done everything before that with two paracetamol. I do think that if I knew it was as progressed as it was I'd have been shouting for all the drugs but I was so convinced it was early on and didn't want to be a wuss 😂

I think it’s quite hard to predict. From what I have seen with myself and a lot of friends, some people are ‘good’ at giving birth, and some aren’t. It seems quite randomly assigned! For me, I’m hopeless. I assumed I would have it easy as I’m fit, definitely have childbearing hips going, and years of endo has made my threshold for abdominal cramping very high. I also generally have a good pain threshold. I did all the calm birthing and was going through a midwife led model. However, my labour was completely different to what I had planned. I didn’t feel a single contraction in my abdomen it was all in my upper thighs. I won’t share the details as it wouldn’t be helpful, but what I would say is that the intensity of the pain was probably a signal that something was wrong, and I think I should have asked for intervention sooner than I did. In the midwife care model I went through, you are definitely a failure if you need to transfer down to the hospital area for any medical assistance. Although it was a terrible birth and recovery, I think it’s important to add that I recovered both mentally and physically. I went on to have more kids and had much more actively managed births. I still sucked and couldn’t even birth a 7lb baby without forceps, but I reached an acceptance that birthing is not one of my many talents, and that’s ok, we can’t be good at everything! There is so much value and worth tied up in conversations around birth, so shifting the mindset is helpful. There is nothing about me that’s less strong or successful than my sister who could have popped them out while cooking dinner and have gone right back to it. You won’t know how your birth will be until you are there, sometimes complications can happen after. With my second I had an epidural after birth as I was being rushed to theatre to control a PPH. Whatever way it goes though, it’s not actually a reflection on your worth, value, strength, or resilience!

My contractions felt like strong diarrhoea pains, I actually slept through most of them until I actually realised something was going on! The most painful part for me was the head coming out (stretching and burning sensation)

People can’t really tell you how bad the pain is as it’s completely different for everyone - I’ve heard and read a lot of birth stories and my conclusion is that everyone experiences the pain of childbirth differently. A pp has said above that it’s like bad period pain. My mum described it as really bad stomach pain. I experienced it as excruciating all over body unbearable pain that gas and air didn’t touch. I did not find it “bearable” in any way and found the whole experience traumatic. My labour was fast and that seems to impact pain levels going from anecdotal reports, but other factors also seem to contribute such as a baby being back to back. So just these few examples shows you that women experience the pain differently. Conversely I know someone who had barely no pain and woke up with her child crowning! (this is a condition apparently). And obviously how you cope with whatever pain you have will depend on how you cope with such things mentally.

So no one can really tell you “how it is”. You just need to be prepared and have a plan for all eventualities as you don’t know what your experience will be or how you will cope until you are in there. So you need to be flexible about your birth plan. You may not want stronger drugs, but you might want to think about what you do want to do if you aren’t coping on gas and air and let your birth partner know so they can advocate for you. I was unable to think about pain relief options or ask for anything at all, when in the throes of it. It was all too overwhelming and I just couldn’t formulate those thoughts, or ask questions. It’s hard to explain if you’ve not experienced it, but I just couldn’t do it, which left me with no pain relief at all.

And to answer your last question, the contractions were WAY worse that the “ring of fire”. The latter stings. But it’s a brief localised pain (and I tore) that, for me, was “easy” to cope with and was not even on the same rating scale as the contraction pain!

I don’t think people should be telling you “you’ll be fine on gas and air”. You might be but you might not. I hated gas and air and it did nothing for the pain. It just made me feel woozy and out of control and in pain. You need to prepare yourself for if gas and air isn’t enough, or if you don’t like how it makes you feel. You don’t want be trying to massively change things up and weigh up pros and cons and make big decisions on the day, so have a think about all the options in advance and have a broad plan in place that covers a number of scenarios. But you also need to be flexible, have it in your head that your birth plan can be changed if needed as you don’t know how you will feel and you don’t need to set yourself up to “fail” some rigid idea of how childbirth will go. You don’t need to be superwoman and there’s no shame in pain relief.

It was a hell of a lot worse lying down.. standing or sitting on a birth stool was much more manageable.

I had my first without even gas and air but she was in a good position and everything was in my favour. It was painful but very doable. I didn’t scream or cry. My second I was induced on the drip and that was horrific. The pain on drips is very different I thought. I didn’t have any gas and air either for that but it was not doable and I screamed the place down begging for pain relief ( too late). I was also quite traumatised afterwards and couldn’t hold dd. I think all births are different so don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You might have everything in your favour and bear it well but there are so many factors at play you shouldn’t try to hold yourself to no pain relief. There are no medals and nobody cares what kind of birth you have.

It’s all about the baby’s position (and your anatomy). My daughter was back to back, then half turned, and the pain was indescribable even before I as much as got to 1cm. I don’t know what it would have been like for me with a baby in a better position, because my next two were ELCS. Not because of the pain (though that confirmed my decision), but because of birth injuries.

I think every woman should give birth the way that they want, but whenever I hear women say what a great birth they had because of hypnobirthing/ fairy lights/ positive thinking/ raspberry leaf tea/ their own playlist etc I always want to say “Erm, your baby was in the right position!”. Of course I just smile and nod though. (And yes, I did drink raspberry leaf tea and ate dates like they were going out of business).

Why?

I had an early epidural - had a good sleep, watched the Wimbledon final - all pain free. Couldn’t see any point in being in pain when it was avoidable.

No one’s reaction to pain should be compared.

I had all the things that people say are painful - big baby, back to back, no pain relief. I didn’t find it hard or especially painful. I rather enjoyed it. The next one was even easier. My 3 sisters TOILED to get their babies out. All the drugs, all the hours, thought it was awful.

Why was I different? Just luck.

@Parker231 that sounds lovely! It wasn’t about wanting to feel the pain for me; having an epidural increases your risk of requiring an instrumental birth and I wanted to avoid that! I was already at an increased risk of that due to personal circumstances.

Up to date research shows that epidurals do not, in fact, increase the risk of an instrumental delivery. It’s correlation, not causation.

I’ve had two spontaneous labours and one induced. The spontaneous ones were doable. The induced one was horrendous, mainly because there was no respite between contractions. Honestly, if I had to do that again, I’d opt for an epidural from the start.

TENS machine works well for me up
until about 5-6cm, gradually increasing the settings. Water takes the edge off after that (although I didn’t end up delivering in the pool either time I used it). Gas and air makes me hallucinate horribly unfortunately. The very last bit is the worst in my experience but at least you know psychologically by then that you’re almost there.

I kept saying throughout, ‘I am never EVER doing this again!!! Please talk me round if I ever say anything to the contrary.’ Yet it was only a couple of days until I was talking about a next time.

@EarlGreywithLemon how up to date is this research? I had my DS nearly 6 weeks ago and it was still the advice at that time (and during my meeting with the anaesthetic consultant mid way through the pregnancy!)

Yes, unfortunately this myth persists with medical professionals, but it’s based on data for older, stronger epidural analgesia than the doses that are given now.

A good summary from Evidence Based Birth:

”in the past, research has shown that people with epidurals are more likely to need additional assistance with pushing the baby out, either through a forceps or vacuum-assisted delivery. But when the Cochrane Reviewers only included more recent studies from 2005 onward, the increased risk of needing forceps or vacuum disappeared. This is likely because of more modern techniques of administering epidurals, like having PCA and lower doses has reduced the side effects that it’s not statistically significant in the studies anymore.”

evidencebasedbirth.com/epidural-during-labor-pain-management/